Monthly Archives: July 2015

I know there are other folks on the list with some property management experience; they may have some additional ideas too. In the meantime, take a deep breath and just remind yourself that there are multiple options which perhaps are not immediately visible at the moment. Give the topic a “time out” and see what other ideas, if any, come forward. Then come back to it when you’re refreshed. I often find that if I put aside concerns about some big thing and go do something else, the answer will come to me out of the blue while I’m working on other things. Hope the little angel of inspired ideas comes to you soon.

It taught me a lot about what happens with that type of arrangement. You can get tenants that are worth gold, and you can get tenants where you can’t get the sheriff there fast enough to throw their butts out. I went through both.

Two ideas for you:
1. Hire a property manager. I was managing my rental from out of state, and it was a PITA. I hired a property manager to take care of the ins and outs of the property maintenance and tenant negotiations. I found that working with a reputable property management company took a lot of the hassle out of the arrangements. They don’t have any emotional attachment to the house (not that you do per se, but you do have some mixed feelings about that house which they won’t have). It’s just a business proposition for them, and they’ll manage it as such. They’re practiced at balancing the cost of keeping a place going and finding good tenants, while returning a profit. There’s a lot that goes into property management and sometimes hiring a manager is a very nice way to go. They’ll take a percentage of the rent as their fee, but you sleep better at night knowing that if something goes wrong, it won’t be your phone that rings at 2am.

2. If the tenant really wants to get out of the lease and you want him to go, and don’t want to carry the house utilities through winter, make it a caveat that a replacement tenant must be found, which meets YOUR criteria for rental history, etc, before he can break his lease. If you hired a property manager prior to letting this guy go, they’d handle all that for you.

I got out of my rental house management after three years because it was just too much to keep up with. I had other career plans and property management wasn’t amongst them. But my dad has been a property manager now for almost 30 years, and he loves it. He treats it like a business and isn’t shy about telling tenants to shape up or get out. He’s done pretty well with that business too, better than some of his other small biz ideas. So it really can go in a variety of different directions, depending a lot on what you want to do with it.

I would suggest since your frustration level is so very high, you may not be in a position to make any big decisions right now. If nothing else, perhaps sit down with a property management consultant or mentor to help you pencil out the various alternatives and discuss which of them are really the most in step with your own personal goals for that house (and the rest of your current/future plans).

I have leased out my old house for the last 2.5 years. All three times, I have offered the home for SALE or LEASE or LEASE PURCHASE, but leasing it out is what has taken place. The first two tenants were great with payment, there were a few maintenance issues that came up (and I promptly had taken care of), and generally speaking did better than break even. Not by much, but something.

This new guy moved in April 1st, and quite the April Fools joke on me it has been. Lots of things have “happened” which I can’t prove they were by the tenant or just “happened to happen” all at once here. All in the last few months:

1. Water damage, mold in a downstairs room… he did have a swimming pool in the back yard dump 1000 gallons or so right by that room. But it *could* be from a drainage issue or something like that. Homeowners insurance will not be covering anything on that.

2. A plumbing/septic tank issue. Apparently this older house (built in 72) still has some cast iron plumbing. It can start to disintegrate over time, and we started having an issue with that on the drainage pipe leading out to the septic tank. Ended up paying about $1300 (the tenant is a handyman, he did it and didn’t pay rent).

3. The water heater went out, and I just paid him to replace that.

4. Now he’s saying that he has no water, thinks the well pump went out, so I just called a plumber to go out.

5. In addition, he has “paid for some things out of his pockets” and taken it off of the rent without pre-approval (about $350 worth).
6. (also, he said the washer tube came unhinged and some water got into the basement).

Goodness sakes. He is interested in moving out whenever I want to let him. But now, before I could sell it OR lease it again… going to have to fix all KINDS of things. And if I let him move out during the winter, the electric bill I’d have to sign back over to me would be super high during those months (all electric heat). I feel like his family has been really hard on the place. I have put HUGE money into renovations at this place (mostly when I lived there, then also before I leased it out the first time). But I’m going to have to completely gut and fix this room, probably take all of the wainscoting out of the lower level. I’m betting carpet/painting and everything. This is a 2000+ sq ft tri-level, so that won’t be cheap. UGH… not sure what to do. Ironically, I’m very interested in investment property when I get to Baby Step #4, but this is going to cost a boatload of money.

Sorry for the long post, just really confused about what to do.
Thanks

A childhood friend of mine’s father always made her save some of her earnings… whether that be babysitting money, odd job earnings, or when we were older, from an actual part-time job.

He set this money aside and gave it back to her as needed when she needed to make large purchases – i.e., a class trip, sports uniforms, car, etc.

He enforced this savings rule as long as she lived under his roof. Guess what? When she moved out, she amassed enough money to buy a fixer-upper house in Michigan with cash. She is a hair dresser of modest income, but now she can live comfortably. And she still saves a good chunk of her checks since she doesn’t have a mortgage payment, and she puts that money into her house – adding value for the future.

Her parents taught her a great lesson about looking to the future and planning. I remember when we were young and she and I did not understand, but gosh do we now!

DH took the news well (whew!) and was very pleased I’d sort of jumped into action to prep the property for the tree coming down, whether it was by plan or by gravity. We were able to talk objectively and without blame or anger that yep, it’s going to be a big bill, but it’s something we have to do, so let’s just deal with it. Then it became clear that Ma Nature was taking things into her own hands, because more and more branches were snapping and popping (sort like listening to a bowl of Rice Krispies), and we knew it was coming down soon. I had just made a big feed and hay run, so we were good on “groceries” for the livestock. DH parked his truck on the other side of the road so that we had a vehicle on each side of where the tree would end up. I even called the neighbors to let them know that if they heard a big crash in the middle of the night, they didn’t have to go out in their bathrobes and bunny slippers to see if we were OK. And then we waited.
About 7pm, we heard it go. It was already dark but we knew pretty much where it was going to land. It was actually surprisingly quiet. The Doug fir branches sort of slowed and cushioned the fall such that the tree didn’t really fell down, it laid down. And we couldn’t have laid it down any better if we’d tried. I think the little angel of inspiration took the Big Angel of Protection aside late yesterday, and said “hey, these folks gave me some free advertising today. Can you do me a favor and make sure that tree of theirs doesn’t do any damage on the way down?” The tree landed exactly in our garden aisle, such that none of our raised bed frames were crushed. Missed the beehives, missed the few herbs I still had out there, clipped a dead branch of another tree, squashed an old fence. That’s it. Didn’t hit the power lines, didn’t even take out too many Doug fir branches on the way down. And now, we don’t have a $1K+ felling bill but we want to use payday loans online secure service, so as an added bonus, the DH is starting to see the value of the sinking funds! Is that a bank shot or what?!? He had muttered last night that darnit, he wants to find a way to save up for this sort of thing a little bit at a time, in advance, so that we can deal with emergencies like this when they come up unexpectedly. I very gently reminded him that’s the whole purpose of the sinking fund system. And for the first time ever, he seemed to think yea, that might actually be a good idea. YAY!!!!!

So today we have a lot of chainsaw work to do, but a very big thank you to the Big Angel of Protection and the little angel of inspiration, both of whom were working to help out here yesterday.

My son (who is 11) is making money making and selling cookies with his friend. He makes about 5-7 dollars a week.
Do you:

A) leave him alone and let him put all the money in his wallet (minus expenses for cookie dough) – he’s spending only on candy and soda (all his other needs are taken care of by us and he has no big “wants” right now to save up for)

B) require him to put some in savings and charity (ie a percentage or dollar amount)

who are attending the Foundations in Personal Finance class. We’ve had two, both the same subject. I was so late in getting out invites to the various homeschooling groups in my area that only 3 were able to make it the first week. But those three were involved in something else (as a group) yesterday, so we did a makeup session with the 4 (and two parents) yesterday. Next week we will all be on the same page.

It’s really interesting. If you’ve been through FPU or read Total Money Makeover, Foundations is a really different format. In fact, if I was an adult, I’d do FPU/TMM then when I go to baby step 3 or 4 I’d make myself go through Foundations since its focus is on saving, investing and wealth building.

It’s also challenging because it’s hard to sell the concept of having an emergency fund even BS1 to teenagers. They just don’t see the need for one. The best the group could come up with as high schoolers that they might have as emergencies were breaking your cell phone, getting a ticket (most of them don’t even drive.) IT’s quite a different dynamic from adults who at least intellectually acknowledge WHY they should have an EF.

I WAS able to get them to agree that they are all 2- 2.5 years away from college, so if they sit around and do nothing, 2.5 years from now college will be here and they will still have nothing. We juxtaposed that against “two years ago” they were in the 8th grade, and now they’re halfway through high school (or more): doesn’t that feel like time flew by? (heads nod.)